Following the merger between Weezevent and Playpass in December 2020, the NFC cashless and access control specialists emerged from lockdown to deliver their busiest summer of fully cashless events to date in the UK. A surge of new and existing clients deployed the award winning technology to enhance their operations in a challenging season.
The first weekend following the lifting of restrictions at outdoor events in the UK saw Weezevent/Playpass return to Standon Calling and a debut deployment at Shambala’s Camp Kin. This set the precedent for a strong run of fully cashless events stretching into September.
Two thirds of clients in 2021 were new to cashless. As well as Camp Kin, these included Valley Fest, Gone Wild, Highest Point, Kids Rock, Jersey’s Electric Park and Glasgow’s Playground and Craft Beer And Food Truck festivals.
Weezevent/PlayPass had also been scheduled to deliver their cashless services at Black Deer, 2000Trees, Arctangent, Unlocked and the inaugural Boom Village, but all were postponed due to Covid.
Smoked & Uncut utilised several products including cashless at the new edition of their single-day food and music festival series, The Pig in Bridge Place.
Festival organiser Dave Wilkinson explained:
“This summer was our second year working with the team; who have helped us streamline our festivals’ ticketing and cashless offerings. We’ve seen a reduction in attendee queue times, both at entry and vendors, increased revenue per head and the team are genuinely great to work with; we’re doing even more events with them in 2022.”
An analysis of data from twelve of Weezevent/PlayPass’ UK weekend camping festivals showed a rapidly advancing market for cashless technology with increased confidence amongst festival-goers.
Key insights from these findings include:
• 78% of all cashless top ups were made online, showing the UK’s festival-going public’s trust in the technology.
• Only 1.9% of top ups made onsite were in cash.
• The average festival visitor spent 80% of the money loaded onto their cashless account — much of the balance being refunded post-event, donated to charity or put towards next year’s ticket.
• On average spend-per-head was 65% higher for visitors that pre-loaded their cashless account before the event.
“I am so pleased with how hard our teams worked to deliver our solutions at a record number of festivals and events this year — and we still have the World Darts at Alexandra Palace to deliver later this month. Working with new and existing clients and looking at the way our industry has had to adapt to what the pandemic threw at us was fantastic to see. 2022 is already promising to be busier than ever.”
UK Country Manager Olly Goddard
